Health dept trying push for free booster doses using CSR funds

CHENNAI: Though cases of Covid-19 are declining for past few days in the State, the state health department officials emphasize on the need to vaccinate the public with booster shot. As booster dose vaccination for common public is paid and offered free of cost only for frontline and healthcare workers, precautionary booster dose vaccination is not getting many takers at vaccination centers, officials said.

In order to push booster dose vaccination across the State and to prevent vaccines getting wasted due to expiry, the health department had requested the Union Health Ministry to allow free booster dose vaccination for all. However, the Union Health Ministry has not shown any signs of approval yet. As on September 2022, more than 30 lakh vaccines stocks with the department are about to expire.

Officials from the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine claim that the department is trying to utilise all the vaccines and prevent wastage by conducting mass vaccination and door-to-door inoculation programmes. “But free booster dose vaccination is not just required with new and more transmissible sub-variants surfacing, vaccine wastage will be minimized too,” an official said.

Regarding the attempt to include Covid-19 booster dose as part of the CSR activity by private hospitals to allow more people to get vaccinated for free, the government is yet to receive the interests of these private hospitals on the same.

"We have asked for a status report of vaccination conducted at each site and stock available with the government to chalk out a plan for promoting booster dose administration. We are also in talks with the private hospitals to include free booster dose vaccination as part of their CSR. The response from private hospitals is awaited," said Dr Vinay Kumar, State Immunisation Officer, Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.

The health department has also asked private hospitals to not levy service charge on vaccines. Two private hospitals have agreed and have discontinued service charge on vaccines, an official from the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine said.